Portal:Capitalism

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The Capitalism Portal

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, self-interest, economic freedom, meritocracy, work ethic, consumer sovereignty, profit motive, entrepreneurship, commodification, voluntary exchange, wage labor and the production of commodities. In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.

Economists, historians, political economists, and sociologists have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free-market capitalism, anarcho-capitalism, state capitalism, and welfare capitalism. Different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership, obstacles to free competition, and state-sanctioned social policies. The degree of competition in markets and the role of intervention and regulation, as well as the scope of state ownership, vary across different models of capitalism. The extent to which different markets are free and the rules defining private property are matters of politics and policy. Most of the existing capitalist economies are mixed economies that combine elements of free markets with state intervention and in some cases economic planning.

Capitalism in its modern form emerged from agrarianism in England, as well as mercantilist practices by European countries between the 16th and 18th centuries. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century established capitalism as a dominant mode of production, characterized by factory work and a complex division of labor. Through the process of globalization, capitalism spread across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially before World War I and after the end of the Cold War. During the 19th century, capitalism was largely unregulated by the state, but became more regulated in the post–World War II period through Keynesianism, followed by a return of more unregulated capitalism starting in the 1980s through neoliberalism.

Market economies have existed under many forms of government and in many different times, places, and cultures. Modern industrial capitalist societies developed in Western Europe in a process that led to the Industrial Revolution. Capitalist economies promote economic growth through accumulation of capital, however a business cycle of economic growth followed by recession is a common characteristic of such economies. (Full article...)

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Towards the late 1970s, Hong Kong became established as a major entrepôt between the world and China. The city has developed into a major global trade hub and financial centre, and is regarded as a world city and one of the eight Alpha+ cities. It ranked fifth on the 2014 Global Cities Index after New York City, London, Tokyo and Paris. The city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, and the most severe income inequality among the advanced economies. It has a high Human Development Index and is ranked highly in the Global Competitiveness Report. Hong Kong is the third most important financial centre after New York and London. The service economy, characterised by low taxation and free trade, has been regarded as one of the world's most laissez-faire economic policies, and the currency, the Hong Kong dollar, is the 13th most traded currency in the world. (Full article...)

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Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930) is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author.

He is currently Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Sowell was born in North Carolina, but grew up in Harlem, New York. He dropped out of high school and served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He received a bachelor's degree, graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1958 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1959. In 1968, he earned his Doctorate in Economics from the University of Chicago.

Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell University and University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked for think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He writes from a libertarian conservative perspective, advocating supply-side economics. Sowell has written more than thirty books (a number of which have been reprinted in revised editions), and his work has been widely anthologized. He is a National Humanities Medal recipient. (Full article...)

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“

Not very long ago it was fashionable for economic historians to dwell on the evils of the industrial revolution and the poverty-ridden condition of the masses in the disease-producing cities. In point of fact no Dickens novel ever did justice to the conditions of child labor, length of the working day, and conditions of safety and sanitation in early nineteenth-century factories. A work week of 84 hours was the prevailing rule, with time out for breakfast and sometimes supper, as well as lunch. A good deal of work could be got out of a six-year-old boy or girl, so long as one didn't care about his health or existence beyond the age of twelve. If a man lost two fingers in a machine, he still had eight left.

However true their lurid picture of industrial factory towns, the earlier historians erred in thinking that conditions were worse than it the preindustrial era. The earlier "putting-out" or domestic system in which wool or yarn was provided to workers for them to spin or weave in their homes brought the worst conditions of the sweatshop into the home. Sleep and need battled for the week's 168 hours. The whole family, not just the breadwinner, was figuratively forced to run on the treadmill to keep alive. For these reasons labor unions have always opposed this system of production, even more than the factory with all its evils.

Furthermore, poverty is never so obvious in the country as in the industrial cities where it forces itself on the observer. The idyllic picture of the healthful happy countryside peopled by stout yeoman and happy peasantry is a mirage in most parts of the world. Even today, nothing in New York's Hell's Kitchen or east side, nothing in Boston's south or north end, nothing "behind the Yards" in Chicago or in its black belt can overshadow the poverty and squalor of our rural problem areas: the Tobacco Road of the deep South, the hillbilly regions of the Appalachian Plateau, the two dust bowls, the ghost mining towns of Pennsylvania, and the cutover region of the upper Michigan peninsula.

”

— Paul Samuelson (1915 – 2009)
Economics: The Original 1948 Edition

General images

The following are images from various capitalism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from History of capitalism)
Image 2The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from History of capitalism)
Image 3The economic model of supply and demand states that the price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D): the diagram shows a positive shift in demand from D₁ to D₂, resulting in an increase in price (P) and quantity sold (Q) of the product. (from Capitalism)
Image 4The city of Genoa, one of the birthplaces of capitalism. (from History of capitalism)
Image 5The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from Capitalism)
Image 6British East India Company 1801 (from History of capitalism)
Image 7Augsburg, the centre of early capitalism (from Capitalism)
Image 8The Watt steam engine, fuelled primarily by coal, propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain. (from Capitalism)
Image 9The Rothschild family revolutionised international finance. The Frankfurt terminus of the Taunus Railway was financed by the Rothschilds and opened in 1840 as one of Germany's first railways. (from History of capitalism)
Image 10The Anglo-Dutch Wars were fought between the English and the Dutch for control over the seas and trade routes. (from History of capitalism)
Image 11Gustave Doré's 19th-century engraving depicted the dirty, overcrowded slums where the industrial workers of London lived. (from History of capitalism)
Image 12Sir Josiah Child, an influential proponent of mercantilism. Painting attributed to John Riley. (from History of capitalism)
Image 13The New York Stock Exchange. (from History of capitalism)
Image 14The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from Capitalism)
Image 15Map of a medieval manor. Notice the large commons area and the division of land into small strips. The mustard-colored areas are part of the demesne, the hatched areas part of the glebe.
William R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas, 01923 (from History of capitalism)
Image 1619th-century Great Britain become the first global economic superpower, because of superior manufacturing technology and improved global communications such as steamships and railroads. (from History of capitalism)
Image 17Cosimo de' Medici (pictured in a 16th century portrait by Pontormo) built an international financial empire and was one of the first Medici bankers. (from Capitalism)
Image 18An industrial worker among heavy steel machine parts (Kinex Bearings, Bytča, Slovakia, c. 1995–2000) (from Capitalism)
Image 19Adam Smith (from Capitalism)
Image 20The Spinning mule, built by the inventor Samuel Crompton. (from History of capitalism)
Image 21A painting of a French seaport from 1638 at the height of mercantilism (from Capitalism)
Image 22Decaying hedges mark the lines of the straight field boundaries created by an Inclosure Act. (from History of capitalism)
Image 23The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century (from Capitalism)
Image 24The Industrial Workers of the World poster "Pyramid of Capitalist System" (1911) (from Capitalism)
Image 25Robert Clive with the Nawabs of Bengal after the Battle of Plassey which began the British rule in Bengal (from Capitalism)

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Did you know

... that the first branch of the Boulder Public Library was built in 1906 with $15,000 donated by Andrew Carnegie?
... that Arkwright House, Preston, has been called one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution?
... that the village of Worsley is centred around the coal mines that helped kickstart the Industrial Revolution in nearby Manchester?